Rustledjimm wrote:The fact of the trade isn't distance it's the lowering of standards that worries the population. For a trade deal with USA or India would require lowering our industry and food standards, something that very few want to happen.

What? Why? Why would India or the US object to higher quality goods coming into their countries?

Spoiler:

"Clowns are different you can't trust those shifty fucks you never know what they're doing or if they're willing to eat a dayban for some cheap yuks."-Not-Dorsidarf

"The amount of people is the amount of times the sound is played... on top of itself. And with sybil populations on the shuttle..."-Remie Richards

"I just spent all fucking day playing fallen london and sunless sea and obsessing over how creepy the fucking dawn machine is and only just clocked now that your avatar is the fucking dawn machine. Nobody vote for this disgusting new sequence blasphemer he wants to kill the gods"-Stickymayhem

"Drank a cocktail of orange Gatorade and mint mouthwash on accident. Pretty sure I'm going to die, I am on the verge of vomit. It was nice knowing you guys"-PKPenguin321

"You're too late, you will have to fetch them from the top of my tower, built by zombies, slaves, zombie slaves and garitho's will to live!"-Armhulen

"This is like being cooked alive in a microwave oven which utilises the autistic end of the light spectrum to cook you."-DarkFNC

"Penguins are the second race to realise 2D>3D"-Anonmare

"Paul Blart mall cops if they all had ambitions of joining the Waffen-SS"-Anonmare

"These logs could kill a dragon much less a man"-Armhulenn

">7 8 6WHAT MADNESS IS THIS? POETIC ANARCHY!"-Wyzack

"We didn't kick one goofball out only to have another one come in like a fucking revolving door"-Kraseo

"There's a difference between fucking faggots and being a fucking faggot."-Anonmare

Why are people acting as if the UK isn't in any position to make demands when it comes to these trade deals? The world's 5th biggest market is going to be ripe for the picking. The EU's share of the UK's trade has steadily dropped over the past 10 years, and the trend is continuing. It baffles me how people are acting like the UK will have to bend over and take cheap Chinese goods up the ass. Being unshackled from the EU will give them a ton of leverage in trade deals. They can demand that goods meet certain quality standards.

Yes, it'll be scary at first. It's a big shift from the status quo for the UK. But in the long run, they stand to gain a ton.

Edit: Another point I forgot to mention, the US is firmly siding with the UK in Brexit. I've heard that some European politicians are terrified that Trump will pull troops out of Europe if things go south on the Brexit deal. Whether the rumors are true or not, it's definitely on the table, and definitely something that will be in the back of the EU's head.

Luke Cox wrote:Edit: Another point I forgot to mention, the US is firmly siding with the UK in Brexit. I've heard that some European politicians are terrified that Trump will pull troops out of Europe if things go south on the Brexit deal. Whether the rumors are true or not, it's definitely on the table, and definitely something that will be in the back of the EU's head.

On a related note, I cannot for the life of me understand how so many Brits can simultaneously have this defeatist attitude for their own country, yet act so condescendingly towards Americans. I'll be the first to admit that America isn't some magical utopia and that we have plenty of asinine problems that need to be addressed, but your house is hardly in order either. You've seen an uptick in crime, are in the midst of a refugee crisis, are arresting people for "hate speech" online, and apparently can't negotiate despite having the upper ground. Five years ago I would say that the UK was in better shape than the US, but that isn't the case today. It's not because the US has shot ahead, it's because the UK is slowly going to shit. It doesn't have be that way, and I think that the British people are more than capable of fixing their country.

If you don't want to engage with my "relatively ignorant posts" that's fine, but it looks like you do and you'd rather keep slinging "hurr dur American" ad hominems. I don't look down on Brits, but you seem to think that me being American means that I can't have a valid opinion on this.

Yeah we should be able to say what we want in here considering cosmic scientist turned this into some sort of UNGLANDPOL GENERAL. Just like you infernal anglos to try and colonize and oppress every1 >:o

Luke Cox wrote:Shadow is the kind of person where the central premise can hold some ground, but the accompanying arguments retroactively make it retarded

I make good argument FUCK YOU I'M GOING HOME AND TELLING MOM

Spoiler:

"Clowns are different you can't trust those shifty fucks you never know what they're doing or if they're willing to eat a dayban for some cheap yuks."-Not-Dorsidarf

"The amount of people is the amount of times the sound is played... on top of itself. And with sybil populations on the shuttle..."-Remie Richards

"I just spent all fucking day playing fallen london and sunless sea and obsessing over how creepy the fucking dawn machine is and only just clocked now that your avatar is the fucking dawn machine. Nobody vote for this disgusting new sequence blasphemer he wants to kill the gods"-Stickymayhem

"Drank a cocktail of orange Gatorade and mint mouthwash on accident. Pretty sure I'm going to die, I am on the verge of vomit. It was nice knowing you guys"-PKPenguin321

"You're too late, you will have to fetch them from the top of my tower, built by zombies, slaves, zombie slaves and garitho's will to live!"-Armhulen

"This is like being cooked alive in a microwave oven which utilises the autistic end of the light spectrum to cook you."-DarkFNC

"Penguins are the second race to realise 2D>3D"-Anonmare

"Paul Blart mall cops if they all had ambitions of joining the Waffen-SS"-Anonmare

"These logs could kill a dragon much less a man"-Armhulenn

">7 8 6WHAT MADNESS IS THIS? POETIC ANARCHY!"-Wyzack

"We didn't kick one goofball out only to have another one come in like a fucking revolving door"-Kraseo

"There's a difference between fucking faggots and being a fucking faggot."-Anonmare

DemonFiren wrote:coxposts are like less blatantly stupid but equally wrong shadowpoststhis is comedy central

Rate my posts please

You insulted me once so you get a bad rating/10

Spoiler:

"Clowns are different you can't trust those shifty fucks you never know what they're doing or if they're willing to eat a dayban for some cheap yuks."-Not-Dorsidarf

"The amount of people is the amount of times the sound is played... on top of itself. And with sybil populations on the shuttle..."-Remie Richards

"I just spent all fucking day playing fallen london and sunless sea and obsessing over how creepy the fucking dawn machine is and only just clocked now that your avatar is the fucking dawn machine. Nobody vote for this disgusting new sequence blasphemer he wants to kill the gods"-Stickymayhem

"Drank a cocktail of orange Gatorade and mint mouthwash on accident. Pretty sure I'm going to die, I am on the verge of vomit. It was nice knowing you guys"-PKPenguin321

"You're too late, you will have to fetch them from the top of my tower, built by zombies, slaves, zombie slaves and garitho's will to live!"-Armhulen

"This is like being cooked alive in a microwave oven which utilises the autistic end of the light spectrum to cook you."-DarkFNC

"Penguins are the second race to realise 2D>3D"-Anonmare

"Paul Blart mall cops if they all had ambitions of joining the Waffen-SS"-Anonmare

"These logs could kill a dragon much less a man"-Armhulenn

">7 8 6WHAT MADNESS IS THIS? POETIC ANARCHY!"-Wyzack

"We didn't kick one goofball out only to have another one come in like a fucking revolving door"-Kraseo

"There's a difference between fucking faggots and being a fucking faggot."-Anonmare

@Cosmic: My general take on it is that the UK is in a pretty bad spot right now, but they more than have the capacity to get out of it. This isn't some inescapable black hole, you can do it. All the UK has to do is tell is tell the EU to go fuck itself and focus on fixing its problems. Take the money from the EU membership fees and funnel that into the NHS, police, etc. Although the police issue appears to be as much policy as it is money. Blunting the tips of kitchen knives and confiscating potato peelers isn't going to solve knife crime.

The refugee crisis absolutely was started by Germany and Sweeden, but free movement complicates things a bit. I'm not sure if free movement applies for legal residents, but once they have citizenship it's basically open season. Ditch open movement, and let them deal with the mess they made. According to international law, most of these refugees should be in either Saudi Arabia or eastern Europe (first safe country and all)

I don't agree with a fair amount of Trump is doing, but the one area I've always supported him in is trade. Elect politicians who are willing to negotiate aggressively with the UK's interests at heart. Negotiate your own trade deals, and funnel the tariffs into the aforementioned social programs too. Outsourcing taxes is pretty fucking sweet. These people seem to think that a trade war is tantamount to an actual fucking war. If Trump goes without starting any new military conflicts for his first term, I will seriously consider voting for him in 2020 unless the DNC gets its shit together (voted 3rd party in 2016). A president not starting a war will be a first in my lifetime and jesus christ that sounds depressing now that I've typed it out.

Unlikely given how their platform following Trump has been to double down on hysterically unpopular issues like open borders or gun control. They'll probably wind up crashing and burning, with a new party rising to take their place. Or in a perfect world, crashing and destroying the two party system and actually paving the way for a less shit system.

Spoiler:

"Clowns are different you can't trust those shifty fucks you never know what they're doing or if they're willing to eat a dayban for some cheap yuks."-Not-Dorsidarf

"The amount of people is the amount of times the sound is played... on top of itself. And with sybil populations on the shuttle..."-Remie Richards

"I just spent all fucking day playing fallen london and sunless sea and obsessing over how creepy the fucking dawn machine is and only just clocked now that your avatar is the fucking dawn machine. Nobody vote for this disgusting new sequence blasphemer he wants to kill the gods"-Stickymayhem

"Drank a cocktail of orange Gatorade and mint mouthwash on accident. Pretty sure I'm going to die, I am on the verge of vomit. It was nice knowing you guys"-PKPenguin321

"You're too late, you will have to fetch them from the top of my tower, built by zombies, slaves, zombie slaves and garitho's will to live!"-Armhulen

"This is like being cooked alive in a microwave oven which utilises the autistic end of the light spectrum to cook you."-DarkFNC

"Penguins are the second race to realise 2D>3D"-Anonmare

"Paul Blart mall cops if they all had ambitions of joining the Waffen-SS"-Anonmare

"These logs could kill a dragon much less a man"-Armhulenn

">7 8 6WHAT MADNESS IS THIS? POETIC ANARCHY!"-Wyzack

"We didn't kick one goofball out only to have another one come in like a fucking revolving door"-Kraseo

"There's a difference between fucking faggots and being a fucking faggot."-Anonmare

We're seeing the old neoliberal establishment being swept out of the DNC. Ordinarily this would be a good thing, but instead we have more extreme elements are taking their places. They are completely unviable. No conservative, moderate, or even most liberals want to abolish borders and ICE, enact strict gun control, etc. I expect them to collapse within a single election cycle. It's anyone's game at that point, but what should happen is the DNC should escew identity politics completely and re-invemt itself as a working class unionist party. An American labor party basically.

I was seriously considering calling out that the dems are on the verge of commie takeover but didn't and NOW LOOK WHERE WE ARE WEW LADS

Spoiler:

"Clowns are different you can't trust those shifty fucks you never know what they're doing or if they're willing to eat a dayban for some cheap yuks."-Not-Dorsidarf

"The amount of people is the amount of times the sound is played... on top of itself. And with sybil populations on the shuttle..."-Remie Richards

"I just spent all fucking day playing fallen london and sunless sea and obsessing over how creepy the fucking dawn machine is and only just clocked now that your avatar is the fucking dawn machine. Nobody vote for this disgusting new sequence blasphemer he wants to kill the gods"-Stickymayhem

"Drank a cocktail of orange Gatorade and mint mouthwash on accident. Pretty sure I'm going to die, I am on the verge of vomit. It was nice knowing you guys"-PKPenguin321

"You're too late, you will have to fetch them from the top of my tower, built by zombies, slaves, zombie slaves and garitho's will to live!"-Armhulen

"This is like being cooked alive in a microwave oven which utilises the autistic end of the light spectrum to cook you."-DarkFNC

"Penguins are the second race to realise 2D>3D"-Anonmare

"Paul Blart mall cops if they all had ambitions of joining the Waffen-SS"-Anonmare

"These logs could kill a dragon much less a man"-Armhulenn

">7 8 6WHAT MADNESS IS THIS? POETIC ANARCHY!"-Wyzack

"We didn't kick one goofball out only to have another one come in like a fucking revolving door"-Kraseo

"There's a difference between fucking faggots and being a fucking faggot."-Anonmare

I'm not sure if I would call them communists, but more extreme elements are undeniably taking over the democratic party. The old neoliberal establishment is dying off, both figuratively and literally - they're old as shit. We had Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, people who have slammed Bernie Sanders for not being radical enough, win a house seat in New York. Young democrats are marching in the streets chanting "no Trump, no wall, no USA at all" and carrying signs calling for abolishing capitalism and the border. Of course, these are fringe elements that are hardly representative of the population as a whole. They are making progress in the party itself though, and they will inevitably end up tanking it.

I say "American labor party" because the democratic party re-inventing itself as a working class party focused on labor issues is the only way I can see them winning back all the voters that they've alienated.

Trump's plans in that area were pretty questionable (coal is kill, and it fucking sucks anyway), but it was a plan. Hillary's attitude towards them ranged from apathy to condescension. You'll never guess which demographic cost her the election.

The former is a call to action, the latter... it isn't even disagreeing with the actions being proposed, it's in opposition to the idea that a problem exists. She might as well have sent her supporters out with "I'm alright jack" hats.

Guess which one struck a chord with people who'd been fucked by a recession with no sign of anything improving because nobody was willing to acknowledge there was even a problem? "Oh, but THE ECONOMY is improving!", "you're objectively wrong, look at these GDP figures" and so on, turns out nobody gives a fuck about the economy "recovering" if none of that recovery is being seen at the ground level

France had riots last night in Paris, media says it was football hooligans from France winning the world cup.

Videos show lots of darkies smashing and grabbing, just like all the other riots they have constantly. I wonder how the media connected this riot to the world cup hmmmm.

Also the headline was "Two dead in Paris football riot".The two that died were a couple of separate incidents of a drunk killing himself in a stupid and hilarious way (one dived in a river and broke his neck, I forgot how the other darwined himself).

The former is a call to action, the latter... it isn't even disagreeing with the actions being proposed, it's in opposition to the idea that a problem exists. She might as well have sent her supporters out with "I'm alright jack" hats.

Guess which one struck a chord with people who'd been fucked by a recession with no sign of anything improving because nobody was willing to acknowledge there was even a problem? "Oh, but THE ECONOMY is improving!", "you're objectively wrong, look at these GDP figures" and so on, turns out nobody gives a fuck about the economy "recovering" if none of that recovery is being seen at the ground level

Remember when liberals used to say that America wasn't great?

All it took for them to change idea was a Republican saying the same thing.

It's going to keep being relevant all the way to 2024 at this rateThe entire US democrat platform relies on "I hate Trump", which is not productive. It's just crying that they lostThey don't have a plan or a goal, so by all measure it's likely that they'll lose Trump's reelection and we'll see two terms of Trump

The 2016 election is very much relevant in terms of how it broke the democratic party. My hope after the election was that the democratic voter base would lynch the party leadership, expel the extreme elements, and go back to being actual liberals. Oh how wrong I was...

Luke Cox wrote:The 2016 election is very much relevant in terms of how it broke the democratic party. My hope after the election was that the democratic voter base would lynch the party leadership, expel the extreme elements, and go back to being actual liberals. Oh how wrong I was...

to be fair it also broke the republicansand now their extreme elements are lynching the rest

That's wrong though. Trump is pretty damn moderate and the war hawk neocon branch of the republican party has been on the downturn following the election that they lost.

Spoiler:

"Clowns are different you can't trust those shifty fucks you never know what they're doing or if they're willing to eat a dayban for some cheap yuks."-Not-Dorsidarf

"The amount of people is the amount of times the sound is played... on top of itself. And with sybil populations on the shuttle..."-Remie Richards

"I just spent all fucking day playing fallen london and sunless sea and obsessing over how creepy the fucking dawn machine is and only just clocked now that your avatar is the fucking dawn machine. Nobody vote for this disgusting new sequence blasphemer he wants to kill the gods"-Stickymayhem

"Drank a cocktail of orange Gatorade and mint mouthwash on accident. Pretty sure I'm going to die, I am on the verge of vomit. It was nice knowing you guys"-PKPenguin321

"You're too late, you will have to fetch them from the top of my tower, built by zombies, slaves, zombie slaves and garitho's will to live!"-Armhulen

"This is like being cooked alive in a microwave oven which utilises the autistic end of the light spectrum to cook you."-DarkFNC

"Penguins are the second race to realise 2D>3D"-Anonmare

"Paul Blart mall cops if they all had ambitions of joining the Waffen-SS"-Anonmare

"These logs could kill a dragon much less a man"-Armhulenn

">7 8 6WHAT MADNESS IS THIS? POETIC ANARCHY!"-Wyzack

"We didn't kick one goofball out only to have another one come in like a fucking revolving door"-Kraseo

"There's a difference between fucking faggots and being a fucking faggot."-Anonmare

I think the 2016 elections highlight best the utter failure of a two party system and FPTP

I remember reading back in 2016 about a county in Wales where an MP got elected despite having only ~25% of the vote, by virtue of the fact that everyone else got even less. How an MP can claim to represent a county that barely a 1/4 of them voted for is beyond me

Two party systems and FPTP suck but there's no way to change them unless the system fails, which thankfully(?) the US is damn close to if/when the dem party implodes. We might actually be able to unfuck the system as more parties appear and fight over the space the dems left vacant.

Spoiler:

"Clowns are different you can't trust those shifty fucks you never know what they're doing or if they're willing to eat a dayban for some cheap yuks."-Not-Dorsidarf

"The amount of people is the amount of times the sound is played... on top of itself. And with sybil populations on the shuttle..."-Remie Richards

"I just spent all fucking day playing fallen london and sunless sea and obsessing over how creepy the fucking dawn machine is and only just clocked now that your avatar is the fucking dawn machine. Nobody vote for this disgusting new sequence blasphemer he wants to kill the gods"-Stickymayhem

"Drank a cocktail of orange Gatorade and mint mouthwash on accident. Pretty sure I'm going to die, I am on the verge of vomit. It was nice knowing you guys"-PKPenguin321

"You're too late, you will have to fetch them from the top of my tower, built by zombies, slaves, zombie slaves and garitho's will to live!"-Armhulen

"This is like being cooked alive in a microwave oven which utilises the autistic end of the light spectrum to cook you."-DarkFNC

"Penguins are the second race to realise 2D>3D"-Anonmare

"Paul Blart mall cops if they all had ambitions of joining the Waffen-SS"-Anonmare

"These logs could kill a dragon much less a man"-Armhulenn

">7 8 6WHAT MADNESS IS THIS? POETIC ANARCHY!"-Wyzack

"We didn't kick one goofball out only to have another one come in like a fucking revolving door"-Kraseo

"There's a difference between fucking faggots and being a fucking faggot."-Anonmare

XSI wrote:The sad thing is that you'd have to rely on politicians to change the systemAnd if they've been elected, they tend to not want to change the system

That's WHY the system would change. Every third party candidate that got in would want to change the system to another for the benefit of their party, and while the republicans would oppose it support for a change would come and they'd likely change their tunes.

Spoiler:

"Clowns are different you can't trust those shifty fucks you never know what they're doing or if they're willing to eat a dayban for some cheap yuks."-Not-Dorsidarf

"The amount of people is the amount of times the sound is played... on top of itself. And with sybil populations on the shuttle..."-Remie Richards

"I just spent all fucking day playing fallen london and sunless sea and obsessing over how creepy the fucking dawn machine is and only just clocked now that your avatar is the fucking dawn machine. Nobody vote for this disgusting new sequence blasphemer he wants to kill the gods"-Stickymayhem

"Drank a cocktail of orange Gatorade and mint mouthwash on accident. Pretty sure I'm going to die, I am on the verge of vomit. It was nice knowing you guys"-PKPenguin321

"You're too late, you will have to fetch them from the top of my tower, built by zombies, slaves, zombie slaves and garitho's will to live!"-Armhulen

"This is like being cooked alive in a microwave oven which utilises the autistic end of the light spectrum to cook you."-DarkFNC

"Penguins are the second race to realise 2D>3D"-Anonmare

"Paul Blart mall cops if they all had ambitions of joining the Waffen-SS"-Anonmare

"These logs could kill a dragon much less a man"-Armhulenn

">7 8 6WHAT MADNESS IS THIS? POETIC ANARCHY!"-Wyzack

"We didn't kick one goofball out only to have another one come in like a fucking revolving door"-Kraseo

"There's a difference between fucking faggots and being a fucking faggot."-Anonmare

Say what you will, Trump is actually reasonably moderate on a whole lot of topicsOf course this is not the picture the media and his opponents want you to see, so those get nearly no attention and they focus on the bits where he is terrible. Or the ones they personally disagree with